Sister of love-lorn Poets, Philomel! <br />How many Bards in city garret pent, <br />While at their window they with downward eye <br />Mark the faint lamp-beam on the kennell'd mud, <br />And listen to the drowsy cry of Watchmen <br />(Those hoarse unfeather'd Nightingales of Time!), <br />How many wretched Bards address thy name, <br />And hers, the full-orb'd Queen that shines above. <br />But I do hear thee, and the high bough mark, <br />Within whose mild moon-mellow'd foliage hid <br />Thou warblest sad thy pity-pleading strains. <br />O! I have listen'd, till my working soul, <br />Waked by those strains to thousand phantasies, <br />Absorb'd hath ceas'd to listen! Therefore oft, <br />I hymn thy name: and with a proud delight <br />Oft will I tell thee, Minstrel of the Moon! <br />'Most musical, most melancholy' Bird! <br />That all thy soft diversities of tone, <br />Tho' sweeter far than the delicious airs <br />That vibrate from a white-arm'd Lady's harp, <br />What time the languishment of lonely love <br />Melts in her eye, and heaves her breast of snow, <br />Are not so sweet as is the voice of her, <br />My Sara - best beloved of human kind! <br />When breathing the pure soul of tenderness, <br />She thrills me with the Husband's promis'd name!<br /><br />Samuel Taylor Coleridge<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/to-the-nightingale/
